Atheist's Prayer

The closest thing I have
to a God's unconditional love for man
is my relationship with you
and the love we hope to give our son.

Because you are not to me
as would be the Christian God,
omnipotent and unchanging,
(as we must seem to our child)
the closest I can come
to the black despair of losing faith
is the realization, after we have been apart for too long,
that we did not grow in step...
that you are a distant discordant major seventh away.

While losing you is not religious persecution,
not even close,
I sometimes think of the innumerable heroes
who sacrificed their beliefs for their lives
or the other way around.
I wonder-
Know-
what I would sacrifice to keep you.